AUGUST 12

On this date in 1981, IBM introduced their very first personal computer (PC).  It was IBM model 5150.  The machine was created by a team of engineers and designers in a lab in Boca Raton, Florida.  Other manufacturers were in the market but this unit clobbered the competition and drew the whole world to digital computing.  The world has never been the same.

The machine ran on DOS 1.0 - a Disk Operating System.  The "stripped-down" model offered 16K RAM and sold for $1,565 and the deluxe version offered 64K of memory for about $3,000.   (Note: K = 1,000 bytes,  RAM = random access memory, so this computer could handle 16,000 or 64,000 bytes of memory - - - my little old iPhone can handle over 34,000,000,000 bytes of memory) 

IBM jumped ahead of others trying to sell personal computers with this model and stayed ahead for many years mainly due to their marketing strategy.  To continue as the leader in the electronics  business requires innovation - constant innovation.  That became a tiresome task for this electronics giant.  You can't buy a new IBM personal computer today - they sold that line to a company called Lenova. 

IBM 5150 - - - 1981 - thirty-eight years ago today.